now, annie lowry of "the new york times" is still with us. i have to make sure my viewers understand i am not advocating for tax increases on the rich. gene is a senior writer. kevin haas, senior director at the american enterprise institute, the author of much of mitt romney's economic policy, a good friend of the show. gene, let me start with you. tax increases on people making more than $250,000 a year. use that as a number. might be $400,000, half a million, a million. take $250,000. if you increase taxes, the marginal tax rate from 35% to 39.6% on that group of people, does it hurt the economy? >> well, i'm going to use estimates from the congressional budget office, which is a nonpartisan scorekeeper for congress. they found if you let those bush tax cuts on high-income folks expire at that level it would not boost the economy -- or rather it would boost the economy almost as much as if you let everybody's bush tax cuts stay in place. in other words, there's little difference in how much you would help the economy if you let those bush